The fourteen episode of the third season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (October 30, 2019). You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:
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Show Notes
The history of King Herod Agrippa I intersects with the New Testament story of Jesus and the early church at several key moments. This episode makes reference to the slaughter in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18), the death of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-28), the attempted erection of the statue of Caligula, (Mark 13:14), the death of James and arrest of Peter (Acts 12:1-19) and the death of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:20-23). My story also depends on the history of Agrippa as told in the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus. Agrippa first appears in Book XVIII, Chapter 5 of that work. (Click the references to read the original texts). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
Which Herod is which?
Unfortunately, as many readers of the New Testament have noted, there are way too many Herods in the New Testament and there is a maddening habit of referring to all of them only by the name of Herod. In order to mitigate the resulting confusion, in the episode I have often referred to Herod Agrippa simply as Agrippa, even though it is unlikely that he used this name in this way. I have done the same thing for Herod Antipas, referring to him as Antipas.
Here, for reference, is a look at the family tree of King Herod the Great.
One small note to add to the above chart. Most Christian sources (like this one) will refer to Herodias’ first husband as Herod Philip because Mark’s Gospel calls him Philip. Most historians, however, believe that that particular Herod never used the name Philip (especially as he already had a half-brother who used that name). The scholarly consensus these days is that Mark simply made a small error in designating Herodias’ ex.
The Forrest Gump of the New Testament
I began working on this episode by focusing on story of the death of King Herod Agrippa I as told in the Book of Acts — a fascinating story all by itself. My research led me, of course, to the account of the same event in the writings of Flavius Josephus. The two accounts do not mesh perfectly, but they are certainly close enough that they are not difficult to reconcile. In fact, there has long been discussion about the relationship between the writings of Josephus and the book of Acts. At various times, the writer of the Acts, commonly called Luke in the Christian tradition, seems to be using Josephus as a primary source. But, if that is the case, there also seem to be some times when Luke gets his source material quite wrong. I dealt with one such instance in my book, Caesars Census, God’s Jubilee, in the chapter titled, “Two Non-violent Insurgencies.”
In any case, once I opened Josephus’ books, I had to read his full account of the great king’s life and I was surprised to discover all of the ways in which Agrippa’s life intersected with the story of Jesus and the early church, kind of like the character of Forrest Gump, in the book and movie named for him, intersects with key cultural moments in American history. How was it that I, a lifelong Christian and seminary graduate, had never seen these intriguing connections. I felt that it was something that needed to be known, a story that needed to be told from Agrippa’s side of the tale.
What actually happened (and what maybe didn’t)
The story of Agrippa raises some interesting questions of historicity — what happened and what didn’t and whether Agrippa was actually there. I’ll add a few notes to what I have said in the episode.
The Slaughter of the Innocents
Apart from the one reference in the one New Testament gospel, there is no historical evidence for a slaughter of children at Bethlehem. It is the kind of event that you might expect to leave a bigger historical footprint! Matthew’s account also seemed to be modeled on the Old Testament story of the birth of Moses, so his account may be more dependent on a popular story of that birth (See Antiquities Book II, chapter 9) than on contemporary sources. Nevertheless it is true that Agrippa’s father was slaughtered by his grandfather at about that time, showing that Matthew’s account is certainly in line with Herod the Great’s temperament and character.
The Death of John the Baptist
There seems little doubt that John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas. This event is mentioned in all of the gospels and in Josephus. Most sources also link the death to John’s condemnation to Antipas’ marriage to Herodias, though only the gospels have the dramatic story of how it all took place.
So the event seems to have taken place, even if all the details cannot be confirmed. Of course, there is no mention in the sources of Herod Agrippa being present for the execution of John. I just found it a bit of an intriguing coincidence that this event did take place right around the time when Agrippa reconnected with his sister and received significant assistance from her new husband, Herod Agrippa. So maybe he could have been there.
The Desolating Sacrilege
In the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, often called the little apocalypse, Jesus speaks at length of the terrible things that are to come in the future. At one point, he uses a phrase, drawn from the prophecies of the Book of Daniel, and speaks of the “desolating sacrilege.” When you see this, he says, it will be a sign that things are about to get very real. It is at this point that the gospel writer, traditionally called Mark, breaks into his account and speaks directly to his readers saying, “let the reader understand”
In other words, Mark seems to expect that his contemporary readers should know exactly what these words are referring to. This passage has long been seen, therefore, as a key passage for dating the Gospel of Mark. If we can discover what event was commonly understood to be a “desolating sacrilege,” we can know that the gospel was written in the aftermath of such an event.
There has been considerable scholarly discussion down through the centuries about what this event might have been. The scholarly consensus these days seems to be that it refers to some event that took place during the Jewish was with Rome of 66-70 CE. But another possibility has been suggested, that it refers to Caligula’s attempt to erect his own statue in the temple at Jerusalem. This possibility is attractive, if only for the reason that it is a very similar event to what the Book of Daniel originally was referring to with the phrase — the erection of a statue of King Antiochus Epiphanes.
So, the erection of Caligula’s statue may or may not be an event that is mentioned in the Bible. Whether it was or not, we do know that it was an event that Herod Agrippa was intimately involved in. He did indeed manage to talk the emperor out of the dangerously provocative move — at least the first time.
The Invention of Persecution
The Book of Acts credits Agrippa with the invention of the official persecution of the church. He is the first to round up church leaders for execution or imprisonment. There are no extra-biblical confirmations that Agrippa ever did this, but we do know that he was popularly seen as a defender of the Jewish faith. It certainly seems like the kind of thing he could have done.
His Death
In many ways, the death of Agrippa is the most fantastic part of his story, but it is well attested. Josephus’ account includes some very interesting elements not found in the biblical account — the prophesies and the ominous appearance of an owl (which was the sacred bird of the goddess Diana) — which I have taken the liberty of incorporating. Josephus’ account does put more emphasis on the omen of an owl while the Book of Acts puts the emphasis on the sacrilegious adulation of the King by the crowd. The Acts seems to imply that Herod’s death was immediate while Josephus explicitly states that he took several days to expire. Despite all of these differences, it really is not all that hard to harmonize the accounts.
MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE
“AhDah” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
“Noble Race” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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